


the hairpin turn

by explodinganyway



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:38:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodinganyway/pseuds/explodinganyway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>// Who do you love? You were driving toward something and then, well, you found yourself driving the other way. //</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hairpin turn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [easternepiphany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternepiphany/gifts).



> prompt from prologuize's ficathon (check it out, it's amazing). not 100% happy with it but thought I'd post it anyway and nitpick it later. prompt from Richard Siken's Crush (You Are Jeff).

You know you’re not the world’s stablest person; that no one is going to look to you as a shining beacon of a well-adjusted adult. This is fine because you never wanted yourself to be. Better to have insults aimed at the parts of yourself you had already written off. It’s safe, even though if anyone used that word to describe you, you would fight them tooth and nail. You don’t like safety, you like distance—emotional distance, physical distance, _why are you touching my hair_ distance. It just so happens that those two seem to go hand in hand.

It doesn’t matter. You throw yourself into more dangerous situations to counter it, don’t call the study group for help when you know you should. It’s like one night when you’re stumbling out of The Red Door (you refuse to call it L Street) and you know you’re too drunk to get home but too broke to call a cab. Annie’s place is a short walk, is almost comical in it’s ease and comparative safety and that’s why you cast the thought aside. 

You end up arm in arm with two guys who are leaving the bar at the same time you; you’re drunk and happy and the three of you stumble through the streets heading to their mates place to continue the party. You know you’re too old for this kind of behaviour now, know that what these guys are thinking and what you are thinking aren’t going to be the same, know that screwing someone for a place to crash for the night is _irresponsible_ and _immoral_ and those words seem to come from an alarmingly Shirley-like voice. It’s because of that fact that you go along with it; that you say _fuck it_ , live dangerously. It’s almost laughable how much more dangerous you felt walking to Annie’s would have been.

So you’re not that great of a person, so what. You and Jeff have a pattern, a routine, a nice immoral way of keeping the entire group at a distance. It’s easy and fun and you don’t see the emotional repercussions until it’s too late but that’s always the case, isn’t it? It’s not like the two of you were ever going to be Some Great Love Story; not like you were ever going to be able to go back in time and take away Those Words: _Jeff Winger, I love you._

It wasn’t a lie necessarily. You felt it at the time, didn’t you? Or at least you felt the beginnings of it, the almost of you two and the way Slater was taking that away from you. 

You’ve never been good in a crisis but you outdid yourself that night. Turns out that you can take the almost away from yourself. 

So when you get a chance to screw Jeff again it isn’t any sort of emotional upheaval, you just don’t have anything to lose. It’s win-win, really and you manage to not blurt out an almost truth afterwards and it’s then that you realise that maybe you weren’t just sleeping with him for fun.

It’s not like there is only one reason to sleep with people, you’ve never been that innocent, but you always thought that you would never sleep with someone for any reason other than yourself. For wanting to, for wanting them, for wanting a distraction. These all seem valid but when you’re pulling on your clothes slowly over sweaty skin and searching yourself for anything you might suddenly want to blurt out, you realise somewhere along the line this became something you had to prove to yourself. 

Who do you love? You love yourself, which is a lie. You love protecting yourself and you love screwing yourself and in between those two things there’s not much room for caring. You love the study group and so you try extra hard at keeping them at arms length and by your second year it almost works. You love... _I love you Jeff Winger._

You don’t though and as you pull on your jeans it feels like you won some sort of game. You fucked Jeff Winger again and didn’t spill your soul; you worked so hard to prove to yourself that you didn’t care, and now you don’t. It’s a good thing, right? You don’t love him or the thought of him or the thought of yourself with him. You don’t love yourself either though, so the elation from before fades. It’s like you were driving towards something and then, well, you found yourself driving the other way and you can’t work out if you’re in the car or under it.

When you walk out, it’s before he has a chance to say anything but more importantly, it’s before you have a chance to say anything. The door clicks shut behind you; it sounds like a challenge.


End file.
